Chapter Thirty-Two
On the way to work, Midge visits the McDonald’s drive-through for an Egg McMuffin and a couple of hash browns, one of which she gobbles as she exits the parking lot.
There was a time when very few people would consider that a manageable daily commute. Postpandemic, with so many New Yorkers relocated to this area, many seem to think nothing of it. Midge doesn’t get that, but then, she’s lived here all her life, and her house is a mile from her job.
The most direct route takes her past the high school football field.
She sees that the team is there, running drills in the sticky heat.
She considers stopping to have a word with Jaret Buckley but decides against pulling him off the field in front of everyone.
It can wait. The McMuffin cannot, filling the car with its savory scent.
In the business district, she ignores the illegally parked commuters in front of both Center Street Grind and Lakeside Coffee Roasters. She has more important work to do this morning than issue traffic summons.
The commons is dotted with white awnings and stalls for the weekly farmers’ market.
She skirts around pickup trucks loaded with produce and a couple of Amish horses and buggies.
Spotting a familiar bearded man in a broad-brimmed hat and dark suit, she rolls down her window to call, “How’s it going, Josef? ”
“Good morning, Midge. Very well, thank you.” He indicates a wooden crate in the back of the wagon. “Ruth’s apple fritters. I know you’ve been asking.”
“Yes!” Midge fist pumps, grinning. “I’ll run over later and get one.”
“They’ll go fast. Do you want to wait a minute while I unpack them for you?”
She’s tempted, but anxious to get to work.
She parks in her spot, tucks her iPad under her arm, grabs her coffee and breakfast, and heads inside. The reception area is deserted, the air wafting with some kind of solvent.
“Allie?”
The girl pops her head up behind the desk, looking guilty. “Hi, Midge.”
“What’s going on? What’s that smell?”
Allie sniffs. “What smell?”
“Like paint, or . . .” Stepping closer, Midge sees that Allie’s holding a small bottle. “Is that nail polish?”
Allie follows her gaze as if she, too, has just noticed the object in her hand. “You mean this?”
“Are you giving yourself a manicure?”
“No!”
“Then what . . .” Leaning over the desk, Midge sees that her feet are bare, with cotton balls wedged between each toe. Three nails on her right foot are freshly coated in neon-purple polish.
“I’m giving myself a pedicure,” Allie admits. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t have time to get one yesterday, and my boyfriend and I are—”
“Allie, you can’t sit around painting your nails! This isn’t a salon. You have a job to do.”
“I’m doing it, but when it’s slow, I get bored, so I figured I might as well just—”
“This is unacceptable. If you’re bored, there’s plenty to do. There’s paperwork to file, and the bathrooms can always stand to be cleaned, and—”
“Okay, okay. But can I just finish my toes really fast?”
“No. Put your shoes on.”
“But the polish is wet. Can I—”
“Shoes on!”
Exasperated, Midge retreats to her office. Sitting at the desk, she unwraps her sandwich, takes a quick bite, and checks her email.
Kelly has forwarded Toby’s reports on Reverend Bauer. All bear the subject line Confidential.
Midge starts reading.
Mason Bauer. Born and raised in a small town outside Montgomery, Alabama, became a minister, led congregations in the Southeast and New York state.
Married with children. After leaving Congregational, he was pastor at a small church in nearby Phoenicia.
From there, he moved back down south, briefly serving as pastor for a congregation in Georgia before leaving the ministry altogether in 2006, for undisclosed reasons.
It’s not unrealistic to assume there might have been an incident that was swept under the rug, but she can find no evidence of it in the report.
The first official mention of impropriety came when he was on the adjunct faculty at a community college, teaching theology. A female freshman accused him of improper advances.
He was put on probation.
According to official records, another student filed the same complaint. Her name was later released in relation to a missing person report: Sienna Harmon.
Midge sits up straighter, sets her sandwich aside, and writes the name on a pad.
According to friends and family, Sienna grappled with mental health issues long before her encounter with Bauer.
She’d have been fragile, emotional, vulnerable. A predator’s ideal victim.
She wasn’t missing for very long. She texted a friend that she was going away to be alone. She seemed despondent.
There was an investigation, of course, when she turned up dead in a river near a bridge. She was presumed to have jumped to her death.
Bauer was said to have no connection, with a solid alibi. He lost his job anyway.
The headlines spurred a former congregant to accuse him of molesting her when she was a young teenager. That was the case that went to trial.
There’s plenty of coverage. The courthouse was surrounded by throngs of media and protestors supporting or condemning the man.
Photos and video footage depict crowds held back by police barricades, holding signs and waving crosses, shouting at each other and at Bauer himself as he’s led to and from the hearings, handcuffed and surrounded by deputies.
He looks much older in the photos than he did when she knew him—very thin, with gray and gaunt features.
As Midge suspected, the defense ripped the accuser to shreds on cross-examination.
No wonder the charges were dropped after the mistrial.
They wouldn’t have a case without her testimony, and in a statement through her attorney, she said she couldn’t endure taking the stand again.
Midge wonders where the young woman is now.
She seems to have maintained her anonymity.
One of the accusers who came forward in another state gave a number of interviews in the press.
She outlined in harrowing detail how he’d arranged to meet with her alone, with her parents’ blessings, under the guise of one-on-one “counseling.” He was supposed to help her work through various academic, domestic, and behavioral conflicts, and instead won her trust and gradually seduced her.
“I didn’t think it was wrong at the time,” she said.
“He made me feel like everything everyone said about me was wrong. Like he was the only one who really understood me. When I was with him, I felt like I was a good, worthwhile person. He always knew exactly what to say. I thought I was in love with him. He said he loved me too. He apologized, you know, afterward. He was crying. He said it had never happened to him before, and that we both needed to pray for forgiveness.”
Reading that, Midge tosses the rest of her sandwich into the trash can under her desk and leans back in her chair, hugging her stomach.
She looks at the name she wrote on the legal pad.
Sienna Harmon.
She types it into a search engine and finds herself looking at a photo of an attractive young woman with pretty features and long brown hair. She isn’t a dead ringer for Sarah Greene or Junia Stanton by any means, but when it comes to victimology, there are similarities.
Most of the hits are news accounts detailing what Midge already knows about her life, and her death.
Social media tells a different story, rampant with rumors that Bauer had something to do with it. There’s a large Facebook group devoted to the case: What Really Happened to Sienna Harmon?
Midge has seen this kind of thing before, typically with high-profile cases. Members consist mainly of strangers playing armchair detective, along with trolls and conspiracy theorists. Pages are often rife with outlandish speculation and law enforcement bashing.
This one appears to be no exception. The majority of posts are set to private, and activity has dwindled over the past few years.
Midge applies for membership using the profile she maintains for investigation purposes.
One of the moderators, whose profile name is Kimberly Zee, was an acquaintance of Sienna’s.
Midge writes her a private message explaining that she’s a police detective investigating a missing person case with ties to Sienna Harmon and provides her contact information.
She rereads it, inserts the word possible before ties, and hits send.
There’s a strong chance that Sienna Harmon was simply a troubled young woman who took her own life. Sarah Greene’s connection to Bauer, and thus to Sienna, is tenuous.
But when you throw Junia Stanton into the mix . . .
Three missing women with a connection to Bauer.
Four, if you include Caroline Winterfield.